Banking Strategies recently published an article by APT SVP Will Weidman, naming the top trends that FIs should watch in 2016. Weidman says, “2016 is looking to be one of the most transformative years in financial services in decades. Disruptive competitors are growing, digital and mobile continues to evolve, branches look more and more like Apple stores and interest rates have started rising. Banks will need to embrace smart innovation not only to keep up, but to truly differentiate themselves in a cost effective manner.”

Gallup recently published a poll comparing a variety of statistics between national and community banks, which illuminates a few surprising facts. One apparent paradox is that while community banks are more successful at engaging their customers, they lag behind national banks in capturing share of wallet. While customers at national banks keep 71% of their financial products with their primary banks, customers at regional banks only keep 66%. (more…)

From front-end products such as online banking and mobile payments to back-end operations such as processing transactions, leading banks continue to seek centralized, automated solutions to maximize efficiency.

However, wealth management practices and operations remain significantly less centralized. There is still a lot of debate regarding the efficiencies that can be gained by streamlining financial advisor operations through corporate resources. (more…)

McKinsey & Company recently posted an excellent article, “Getting big impact from big data,” and addressed a proverbial elephant in the room: while most executives believe big data analytics is a critical tool for success, fewer companies have been able to successfully use analytics to drive major business decisions.

So what is preventing organizations from unlocking the value of their data? According to McKinsey a major barrier has been internal organizational cultures that are not familiar with analytical practices and therefore unwilling to take ownership of a new system with unproven results. This keeps organizations from being able to operate data driven initiatives at scale. So while software solutions can help, there is also a significant cultural challenge that needs to be overcome for organizations to realize the full value of big data. (more…)

APT SVP Will Weidman recently authored an article in Global Banking & Finance Review, “Big Data, Omni Channel, and Testing: Turning Buzzwords into Profits.” In the article, Weidman points out that in-market testing is an effective method to rapidly determine which strategies drive KPIs in an omni-channel world: “Organisations can build out a funnel of tests across channels, functional areas and divisions to optimise ROI on nearly every decision made. The most sophisticated testers use learnings from each test to revise strategy and generate new testable ideas going forward, creating a continuous cycle. Conveniently, this model works extremely well in the ever-changing omni-channel environment, where there are new ideas and concepts to test each day.” Click here to read the full article.

APT SVP Will Weidman recently authored an article for Banking Strategies, outlining his top 10 predictions for financial services institutions in 2015. Weidman summarizes, “After years of debate the battle lines have been drawn and it is clear what financial services institutions must do to succeed. In the new world order, the winners will be tech-savvy institutions that constantly innovate while managing expenses carefully.”

APT Co-Founder and Chairman, Jim Manzi, recently co-authored a Harvard Business Review article with HBS Professor Stefan Thomke about how experimentation can help companies de-risk new ideas and drive innovation.

A key point that the article makes is that testing can be an agent for meaningful organizational change, rather than simply a new analytical tactic: “The lesson is not merely that business experimentation can lead to better ways of doing things. It can also give companies the confidence to overturn wrongheaded conventional wisdom and the faulty business intuition that even seasoned executives can display. And smarter decision making ultimately leads to improved performance.”

As competition closes in on all sides for retail banks (e.g., growth of online-only providers, new mobile players, brand consolidation, and more), organizations are doing all they can to bring in deposits. Adding to the pressure, rates are expected to rise fairly soon, which makes it essential for banks to acquire new accounts now. Just like community banks of generations past, financial institutions today are enticing customers with incentives and “freebies” to spur new account generation. However, this isn’t your mother’s free toaster! Today’s marketers are offering cold, hard cash to customers who meet certain requirements. This raises the essential question for bank executives: is this all worthwhile in the end? Are we needlessly spending hundreds of dollars per customer to increase new account generation? How can we know the exact payoff of such offers, and what can we do to make these programs as profitable as possible?

This morning, the Economist Intelligence Unit and APT released the findings of an authoritative study that analyzes how decision-making is changing across industries and geographies. Direct findings from the report include:

• 57% executives reanalyze the data if it contradicts their gut feeling
• 42% of executives are “data-driven”
• 45% of respondents who agree that their company is growing faster than the competition also say they can predict decision outcomes by analyzing tests and trials
• 19% say decision-makers are not held accountable in their organizations